


The Orrery of Elden Root

by HopeStoryteller



Series: Of Golden Shores and Exiled Fools [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Betrayal, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: Fredas, 4th Sun's Dusk. 2E 582.
Relationships: Ayrenn Aldmeri/Female Altmer Character(s), Ayrenn Aldmeri/Female Vestige
Series: Of Golden Shores and Exiled Fools [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815742
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21





	The Orrery of Elden Root

Ayrenn can’t  _ move. _ There’s some force pressing down on her, something that barely lets her stay on her hands and knees, never mind any thoughts of standing. And yet she looks on, horrified, as Naemon slowly, deliberately advances to the Orrery.

This isn’t  _ right. _ It can’t be Naemon who doesn’t look back even once. It can’t be Naemon who steps inside with his head held high, in spite of or perhaps  _ because _ of what he’s just done.

It can’t be Naemon who emerges with a guttural scream as something…  _ else. _ An Ogrim, and a big one at that. This has to be some trick. Some illusion. And yet… somehow, Ayrenn knows it’s neither of those things.

The Orrery reveals the person within.

And Ayrenn’s the one who drove her little brother to become this.

**“I’ll kill you,”** shouts the Ogrim that formerly was her brother.  **“I’ll kill you all!”**

Despite his words, he hasn’t taken his eyes off Ayrenn. She’s first. She’s first, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

_ Perhaps it’s for the best, _ says a small, traitorous part of her. That part sounds almost like Estre. How fitting.

“I’m sorry,” Ayrenn whispers. Something warm and wet trickles down her face. Tears. As the Ogrim—as  _ Naemon _ —as her foolish, stubborn little brother raises a massive arm, she bows her head.

The end never comes. Instead, there’s a great  _ clang _ of striking metal. Her head snaps up to see that fatal strike blocked by a brilliant blue shield.

Canalie puts all her weight behind her shield, and shoves with all her strength. Impossibly, the Ogrim staggers back—but just a few steps.

“You’ll have to get through me first,” says her brave, beautiful agent. 

Rahjin’s Mantle still shimmers on her shoulders. Three places at once—of  _ course. _ Four places at once, now. Ayrenn is, unrelatedly, very glad that Canalie hadn’t bothered to change out of her armor before coming here. She’d left her helmet somewhere, but she’d brought her sword and shield. 

Her sword and shield, as it turns out, is enough. Naemon is— _ was _ —a fairly accomplished swordsmer. But like this, he doesn’t have a sword, and he’d relied in combat on being faster than his opponent.

Canalie isn’t fast. But she’s strong, and she’s faster than a lumbering Ogrim. Ayrenn watches, awed and horrified, as she ducks under a strike that would cleave her head clear from her shoulders.

She can’t just watch. Not like this. Naemon’s spell, whatever it is, it’s weakening. 

Ayrenn  _ has _ to help her. She pushes up, strains to get past the block and back up onto her feet, ever mindful of the continuing sounds of battle.

She makes it, just in time to see Canalie thrust her sword into Naemon’s heart. Her agent yanks on it with one hand, then with two. It doesn’t budge.

“Uh oh,” Canalie says. Her gaze travels up to the eyes of her not-dead-yet foe. She gulps.

Ayrenn draws her sword and runs. The Orrery hadn’t seemed so big before, nor so hard to run in. Just as she reaches them, just as Naemon lifts a massive arm, just when it matters most—

She stumbles. A crack in the ground, coupled with the still-amplified effects of gravity’s pull, results in a trip and a fall. Ayrenn gets up again. She has to. She has to get there in time.

She gets up again, just in time to watch Canalie smacked into the wall. Her armor crumples like paper, and Canalie with it.

Canalie falls.

_ Canalie falls. _

And somehow, Ayrenn knows she won’t be getting up again. She’ll never again awkwardly stammer and stutter around the subject of her feelings, or her past, or any number of other topics. She’ll never again laugh in the face of death and danger, never again crack jokes with Raz about various other members of her court, never again turn quiet and solemn when she’s let someone down.

Ayrenn had wanted to give her time, to figure her feelings out at her own pace. Now she never will.

“No…” Ayrenn whispers. She watches as the Ogrim takes one massive step back, then another. It turns, with one hand clenched around the blade hilt-deep in its chest.

It has her brother’s eyes.

“Why?” Ayrenn asks, voice already breaking.

It—he—Naemon yanks the sword, Cana’s sword, out of his own chest. Black smoke spills forth as he looks at his own, massive hands. **“I…** **wh** at have I…”

He falls too, toppling face-first to the ground, but it’s not the Ogrim that hits it. It’s the lifeless body of her little brother.

Ayrenn drops to her knees and  _ sobs. _ She sobs until she has no tears left to cry, until she’s dimly aware of the king’s hand on her shoulder and Daraneth awkwardly standing over to the side, a Detect Life spell dancing across her fingertips and a crushed expression on her face.

She doesn’t ask Daraneth for the answer they all already know. Instead, she stands, not bothering to wipe away her tears. Should the Orrery judge her as it did Naemon, that will be the least of her problems. 

“Are you… still going to go through with it, my Queen?” Daraneth asks in a small voice.

It takes Ayrenn a few moments to find her own words. “Of course.”

Aeradan makes an alarmed noise. “You don’t have to. I’ve seen enough of the Orrery for a lifetime, meself. We can just say…”

“What? That the Orrery failed to function? Or, even better, that it deemed me worthy when I never set foot inside at all?” Ayrenn shakes her head. She forces herself to look at Canalie, lying there dead. “No. I have to do it now. We’ve lost so much…”

The Bosmer king’s shoulders slump, but he nods. “If you come out like… that…”

“I trust you both will end it quickly. Should I die here, my cousin Alwinarwe will be the next queen of the Summerset Isles. And… there is no one I would rather have succeed me as leader of our Dominion than you, King Camoran Aeradan.”

“Flattered. Really. But you  _ don’t _ have to do this.”

“I do.”

Perhaps that unwavering conviction, only strengthened by the loss of her brother and her agent (because that was all Canalie was, in the end, no matter how much Ayrenn wanted more) is what allows Ayrenn to emerge from the Orrery as something entirely unexpected. Not a monster like Naemon, simply… herself. 

Ayrenn would cry from the relief, but she has no tears left to cry now. Instead, she gives the order that no one will speak of what Naemon did, that he will be remembered as a hero. Only then, after Naemon’s body has been carried out, does she dare to cradle Canalie’s lifeless body in her arms.

She wishes she could cry, then, and yet no tears come. The only thing she can do is pretend that things hadn’t ended like this, that she’d pressed Canalie to talk to her sooner (but then she might have scared her off.)

“...Queen Ayrenn?” Daraneth calls to her, over by the Orrery’s controls. 

There’s a clear question in her words, something important perhaps, but Ayrenn can’t quite bring herself to look over. Instead, she closes her eyes, bows her head, and asks, “What is it?”

“It’s… well, this should be impossible, but then again so should have been all that nasty business in Southpoint, maddening that certainly was, but I… this is going to sound impossible, and in complete honesty it should be impossible. I don’t think she’s—”

Canalie coughs. Canalie  _ coughs,  _ and Ayrenn’s eyes snap open. It’s impossible. It has to be impossible, Canalie was  _ dead _ and people don’t just un-die and yet…

And yet, there she is, very much  _ not _ dead, tired yellow-green eyes looking up at her in clear confusion.

“Ow,” Canalie mumbles, sounding slightly pained. She looks a little closer, furrows her brow and asks, softly, “Are you—why are you crying?”

As it turns out, Ayrenn does in fact have tears left. It’s then, and only then, that they come spilling forth.

**Author's Note:**

> This may make more sense if you've caught up to the same date in [Field Notes on Operation Bloodline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071340/chapters/60727738).
> 
> Anyway, I'm not sorry.


End file.
